World championship

A world championship is generally an international sports competition open to elite competitors from across the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport or contest.

The title is usually awarded through a combination of specific contests or, less commonly, ranking systems (e.g. the ICC Test Championship), or a combination of the two (e.g. World Triathlon Championships in Triathlon). This determines a 'world champion', who or which is commonly considered the best nation, team, individual (or other entity) in the world in a particular field, although the vagaries of sport ensure that the competitor recognised at the best in an event is not always the 'world champion' (see Underdog).

Certain sports do not have a world championship, instead they may organise a world cup competition, or they may organize both. Often, the use of the term cup or championship in this sense is just a choice of words. Some sports have multiple champions because of multiple organizations such as mixed martial arts, boxing and wrestling.

2017 World Championships in Athletics

The 16th World Championships in Athletics are scheduled to be held in 2017 in London, United Kingdom. London was officially awarded the Championships by the IAAF, in Monaco on 11 November 2011.

Bidding process

When the seeking deadline passed on 1 September 2011, two candidate cities (London and Doha) had confirmed their candidatures. Barcelona, which investigated a bid, withdrew citing a lack of support from the local population and financial difficulties. IAAF Evaluation Commission will evaluate the bids of the two cities. The commission visited London on 2 October before departing for Doha on 4 October and staying there until 6 October with the final announcement of the winner on 11 November 2011. On 11 November 2011, the winner was officially announced as London.

Doha

On 5 September 2011 Doha launched its marketing bid for the 2017 World Championships. The slogan of the bid was "The RIGHT PARTNER for a stronger World Championships." The bid was led by Abdullah Al Zaini and Aphrodite Moschoudi. Moschoudi successfully led Qatar's bid for the 2015 Handball World Championships. Doha also brought in Brian Roe, a member of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Technical Committee. The bid was for the championships to be held in the renovated, climate-controlled Khalifa Stadium. The Corniche prominade was to hold the road races, with the committee proposing to hold the marathon at night after the opening ceremony.

Ivana Španović

Ivana Španović (Serbian Cyrillic: Ивана Шпановић, born 10 May 1990) is a Serbian long jumper, reigning European indoor champion. In 2013, she became the first Serbian track and field athlete to win a medal at the IAAF Outdoor World Championships . She holds the Serbian record in the long jump, indoors and outdoors, and also is a national indoor record holder in the 60 metres and in the pentathlon. Her coaches are Jani Hajdu and Goran Obradović and she is a member of the Athletic Club Vojvodina in Novi Sad.

Career

Španović earned gold medals at the 2008 World Junior Championships and the 2009 Summer Universiade. She was selected as Serbia's Best Young Athlete of 2008. She also won silver medals at the 2007 World Youth Championships, the 2009 European Junior Championships and the 2011 European U23 Championships.

Španović participated in the qualifying round at the 2008 Olympic Games, and was a finalist at the 2012 Olympic Games.

In 2013 she started at the European Indoor Championship when she was ranked fifth. At the World outdoor championship she had achieved the best result in her career by then, bronze medal with the new national record 6.82 meters. Olympic Committee of Serbia therefore declared her the best female athlete of the year.